I have recently been looking for a place where I can purchase from the Collection Budé in America. I am located near Boston and our paramount foreign language book seller does not currently carry any of these volumes. I am familiar with the Loeb Classical library, but desiring to grow both my french and greek simultaneously, these books are as gold. Does any know a vendor, online or otherwise, where I could procure these books? Please let me know!

...desiring to grow both my french and greek simultaneously, these books are as gold.

Somebody on this forum recently said--it might have been Scribo--that when learning two second languages, diglots are effective in a way that a target language-native language diglot would not be. That is, fluency is more likely to be attained with the former, whereas, with the later (i.e. a Loeb,) interference from the native language prevents thinking in the target language. All of which is to say that this does not answer your question of where to find these books, but that I strongly encourage you to learn French and Greek together and avoid as much English as possible. Also, you are in a great position to benefit from Christoph Rico book's Polis, Parler Le Grec Ancien Comme Une Language Vivante.

As Greek diglots are inexistent in my native language, all diglots I read are completely second language to me. The idea about interference is a good one, I never thought about that. But the English Loeb and French Budé translations are cribs and probably not the best model for learning those languages (except for vocabulary). And of course if you read those introduction and commentary parts in the Budés, you'll be reading "real" French... This being said, the Budés are great, they are bit more scholarly than the Loeb's, and even the older ones are useful because they haven't been bowdlerized (at least some Aristophanes from the 20's and 30's seemed good to me).

I use some of these and I think they are great. They are critical editions. Much more scholarly than Loebs. No comparison really. Walbank said they were the best for Polybius and I have found that to be very true. The translations are excellent. Actually, among the highest quality translations I have seen of Greek period.

But the main point I want to make is that if you are actually using them for two languages at the same time, understand that you will go half as fast. And depending on what and how you are reading, that may become intolerable. I actually am working on three languages at the same time with Polybius and somedays it actually seems like I am going in reverse. Indeed, it may be less than half as fast if you get sidetracked by some grammar issue in French. Suppose you are reading some Budé and you start to wonder how the heck the the conditionnel passé II works. Do you mind putting down your Greek/French reading for a couple of hours or couple of days to review something in your French grammar? Then, will you be able to pick up with the Greek right where you left off? Not for everyone. And no obvious gain in efficiency as far as I can see. I actually have different times set aside for the different languages even if I am using the same Budé that week.

As for where to buy them, copies from France will have typical prices. But if you look outside of France, you might be able to find some good deals. I got one that a UK university was gettting rid of--I don't think anybody had ever checked it out to be honest--and I got it for under 10EUR.

Lastly, they are quite light, even the hardcovers. I am starting to worry about some of the bindings. Not as sturdy as a Loeb.

As for cribs, I don't know, I think I've seen the word used for literal translations of classical texts. If the word doesn't exist in this context, then I'm sorry for my bad English... Anyway, I meant that Budés and Loebs are both fairly literal translations that aren't necessarily examplary French or English.

Quote from the Loeb Odyssey by A. T. Murray revised by George Dimock (Od. 1.368): "Suitors of my mother, arrogant in your insolence, for the present let us make merry with feasting, but let there be no brawling, for this is a pleasent thing, to listen to a minstrel such as this man is, like to the gods in voice." I'm not a master in English style myself, but maybe if a foreigner like me were exposed only to this kind of English, the result could be... interesting. And this is probably the best literal English translation of the Odyssey; I'm not denying that, only wondering whether this a good model for English.

As for cribs, I don't know, I think I've seen the word used for literal translations of classical texts. If the word doesn't exist in this context, then I'm sorry for my bad English... Anyway, I meant that Budés and Loebs are both fairly literal translations that aren't necessarily examplary French or English.

Paul,

Crib is an English word used for literal translations e.g. R.C. Jebb Sophocles. Nothing inherently evil about a crib. It is something like a window into one scholars exegesis of the text. The quality of the Loeb translations is all over the map. Some are nearly useless as a crib. Others are so old the English is almost a second language to people now in school. Some translations from the early 20th century were flavored by Elizabethan English (Shakespeare, KJV). Even works as late as Lattimore occasionally slip into archaic English.

You could try amazon.ca, since there's a French community in Canada. Maybe the postage fees are lower than from Europe.

One thing: the older Budé paperbacks were sold with their pages uncut. It's possible that when you buy one of those, the book has never been opened and you'll have to cut the pages yourself. Happened to me (a volume printed in 1948). It was sort of exciting to do it once, but maybe not too often... The binding of the older paperbacks is pretty bad according to modern standards. If you like handling old, dirty, smelly books (like I do!) get them, but you've been warned

Re: cribs. Nothing inherently bad about them, I use them all the time. So much I have to make an effort not start using "cribese" myself, and that was the point I was trying to make. Budés like Loebs are different from one another and the quality varies; the Budés I'm familiar with (Aristophanes, Argonautica) were pretty literal and very good translations (in the sense "good cribs"), but I can't speak about the other ones. Except that don't get the Odyssey in Budé, it's really, really weird.

C. S. Bartholomew: The quality of the Loeb translations is all over the map. Some are nearly useless as a crib. quote

In an earlier stage of my learning Greek, when I was heavily dependent on translations, I used to get very frustrated at some of the Loebs because some of the translations were so free that they were useless in helping you unpack the Greek. It seemed to me that if you took the trouble to print a facing translation, why not make that as literal possible? I used to wonder--I guess I still wonder--who the intended target audience of the Loebs were. I assume that most people get the Loebs to focus on the Greek and only use the English when they need help unpacking the Greek. Such people would not really care that the translation be readable, good English, only that it be super-literal. I guess, on the other end of the spectrum, some Loeb readers actually read the English and only look occasionally at the Greek to identify a Greek word or two here and there--dabblers, that is, in Greek, who maybe can only read the alpha-bet. For these people, I understand, you would simply want a good English version.

When you read a good commentary, often to unpack a difficult Greek sentence or construction, they will give you a very literal English rendering. This is the idea behind a crib, but now that I think about it, I have never seen a complete Greek work with a true complete crib, that is, an entire translation that is designed to be nothing BUT a crib. Even for the Greek New Testament, where you would think such an idea would be attractive to learners, I don't think such a thing exists. Has anyone seen such a thing? I don't use English (or French) translations at all anymore, but my learning experience would have been better with better cribs, and I'm thinking of ways to help others who go down a similar path. I happen to think, by the way, as an ardent foe of Grammar-Translation, that cribs are less harmful to learning Greek than meta-language, which I have also said goodbye to. (A simplified Greek paraphrase, which can be considered to be a different type of crib, is to be preferred when practical.)

The other thing about the Loebs about which I have griped publically is that the font is too small. I guess some people like the idea of the books being small, but if you simply reprinted some of the popular Loeb editions in a larger size with larger fonts, I be you would have a best seller. The Budes that I have seen (to get back to the topic ) do have larger fonts, if I remember correctly.

Markos wrote: I have never seen a complete Greek work with a true complete crib, that is, an entire translation that is designed to be nothing BUT a crib. Even for the Greek New Testament, where you would think such an idea would be attractive to learners, I don't think such a thing exists. Has anyone seen such a thing?

Yes, at least two but not in the form of diglots. There is Young's Literal (free in e-text form) and Jay Green's literal Bible. J.P. Green of course also did an interlinear which became the basis for his literal bible. I think Young and Green are based on the Byzantine Text form, not sure about Young's it might be Westcott-Hort text[1]. I should add that they used a particular variant of the Byzantine text form, the Textus Receptus (TR) which isn't the same animal as Robinson-Pierpont or Hodges & Farstad. Nothing is more irritating to people who worked for decades on a critical edition of the Byzantine text form than having it equated with the TR.

Young used the Textus Receptus (TR) and Majority Text (MT) as the basis for his translation. Young produced a “Revised Version” of the translation in 1887, which was based on the Westcott-Hort text that was completed in 1885. After Robert Young died on October 14, 1888, the publisher released a new Revised Edition in 1898.

I have a couple of the Belles Lettres editions, Psellos' Chronographie ou histoire d'un siècle de Byzance (976-1077), and I can attest to how good these editions can be. It's great practicing my French when the Greek fails me.

If I have any complaint it is that they are paperbacks and tend to be fairly expensive. Each is marked at €51, although I know I paid less for each.

If you go to Paris the chain bookstores have them, and in comparison to the classics sections of US chain bookstores, the area is surprisingly large in some stores.

While it's true that some of the original Loebs were atrocious, the standards of many of the Loebs are quite high, especially those that were revised or published after the renewal of the collection began aoround 1990 under the editorship of G.P. Goold. The new Greek elegy, iambic and lyric poetry (Campbell), the new editions of tragedy and comedy, Pindar, Apollonius, Lucretius, the Ovid revisions of Goold and his Propertius, to name a few, are up-to-date in their translations and scholarship, even if they don't offer a full critical apparatus. (A new edition of the Greek Bucolic Poets is sorely needed.) And some of the Bude editions are not so good.

Qimmik wrote: the standards of many of the Loebs are quite high, especially those that were revised or published after the renewal of the collection began aoround 1990 under the editorship of G.P. Goold.

I have used David Kovacs for Iphigenia at Aulis, found it helpful. Sommerstien on Agamemnon also helpful.

Yeah I want to butt in here re: Loebs, though I want to talk more in-depth about bilinguals at some point so I'll make it brief. I think the BLs are better overal, though I hate the size of the print. HOWEVER, there are some real good Loebs by worldwide experts. Admittedly, few and fair in between, but still.

Firstly I wouldn't ever buy a prose text. They really screw you price wise. 2 books of Herodotos for £16? No. Yet they're really good for fragments and other non popular material. There are some outstanding editions. Arnott's Menander did the job for years, more recently De Melo's Plautus and Kaster's Macrobius are both brilliant.

So don't worry too much about the Loebs, though yes tbf their French cousins are generally better. They also REALLY need to sort out their volumising. There is no way I would purchase 3 Loebs for Aeschylus. Jesus. Testimonia and extant in one, fragments in another. There are quite a few reasons why I generally dislike bilingual texts, this is a major one.

Markos wrote:This is the idea behind a crib, but now that I think about it, I have never seen a complete Greek work with a true complete crib, that is, an entire translation that is designed to be nothing BUT a crib.

I may still not be understanding all of this. But what about say Allan Bloom's translation of the Republic? He spends most of his introduction explaining how word for word translation is necessary and possible. Not that I think he is right or succeeds. Or what about some of the interlinears that use all manner of hypennated English to translate participles? Or people who translate Aristotle's metaphysics these days? I think they aim to be as literal as possible. Couldn't we say that if a "true complete crib" is in fact possible and not just another Straussian delusion, then there are a few examples around? Or are you just saying that such a thing is indeed a delusion?

Markos wrote:This is the idea behind a crib, but now that I think about it, I have never seen a complete Greek work with a true complete crib, that is, an entire translation that is designed to be nothing BUT a crib.

I may still not be understanding all of this. But what about say Allan Bloom's translation of the Republic? He spends most of his introduction explaining how word for word translation is necessary and possible. Not that I think he is right or succeeds. Or what about some of the interlinears that use all manner of hypennated English to translate participles? Or people who translate Aristotle's metaphysics these days? I think they aim to be as literal as possible. Couldn't we say that if a "true complete crib" is in fact possible and not just another Straussian delusion, then there are a few examples around? Or are you just saying that such a thing is indeed a delusion?

What I am saying is that there is difference between a very literal, even a word-for-word, translation (like Young's NT that Clayton mentioned) and a translation that is written only with the learner of Greek in mind. The NET diglot, which happens to be a fairly loose translation, includes underneath the Greek text translation notes which render certain Greek phrases into literal English phrases, which are designed specifically to help you unpack the Greek. I'm thinking of an entire translation like this, a translation that would have no merit to anyone other than a Greek learner. I maintain that such a version would look a little different from a version that seeks literalism for reasons other than Greek pedagogy. Such a translation might even have superscripts indicating the Greek order, e.g ὁ δὲ εἶπεν would be rendered "and (2) he (1) said." It could have codes that would make sense only to people who knew Greek. ἐβάδιζε τῇ βακτηρίᾳ "He was trying to walk (imperfect) with (bare dative) the staff."

All I am saying is that Loeb could have considered commissioning people to do this. Such a crib would need to printed opposite the Greek text to be fully effective. An interlinear is a slightly different animal because of the dynamic of not being able to see the Greek in isolation from the English.